


Do You Hate Me?

by shishiswordsman



Series: long lost brothers, newfound bonds [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, Based on a Tumblr Post, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shishiswordsman/pseuds/shishiswordsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t save him… Do you hate me?” Luffy sniffles in a voice that doesn’t belong to someone close to their twenties. </p><p>No, this is the same seven year old boy that used to wake him up after a nightmare with a quivering lip and red rimmed eyes. This is the little brother of Ace and Sabo, not the notorious Straw Hat Luffy, and neither is Sabo the chief of staff of the revolutionary army at that moment, but a big brother in all his heart and soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Hate Me?

Sabo remembers.

He can see the freckled face stretched to a grin in every man he passes, and hear the distinctive shishishi-laugh in every snicker that leaves his companions' lips. He doesn’t feel he has the right to forget, nor does he want to. He has done his fair share of forgetting, and now he clings onto the newfound memories like a lifeline, no matter how much they wound him.

He embraces the nightmares of his family dying over and over again, of his younger brother screaming insults and accusations in his face while his other brother’s prone body gets colder and colder, the fire quenched but a macabre, yet so serene smile still on his lips nonetheless.

It terrifies him to know that his brothers went through hell without him. It pains him to know his brother died before they had the chance to meet again and he could apologize, set things right. It makes him want to cry to know that his little brother, the one he asked Ace to protect, was alone with his grief after the other had fulfilled his promise and paid for it with his life. And it disgusts him to know that he should have been there but wasn’t, makes him feel so ashamed and so _fucking_ sorry that it kills him.

He doesn’t know if he could have changed things, but he knows that he should have been there, as well as he knows that the sky is blue and the ocean is wet. It haunts him to know that _maybe, perhaps, possibly_ he could have served a purpose to save and protect those closest to him, but he didn’t remember - didn’t have the memories that would have made all the difference before it was all too late.

What good does training like a madman for a decade do, if you don’t use those skills to protect the ones you love? What merit do his own aspirations for liberty hold when he was unable to break the chains of the one person who deserved all the freedom the world has to offer?

Those thoughts have kept Sabo company from the moment he laid eyes on that newspaper article about the war, his only solace remaining with the knowledge that at least Luffy is safe, he is okay, he is _happy_.

So when Luffy asks the question Sabo himself has wanted to ask for two years now; reveals that, despite his energetic exterior he too is haunted by the same demons of fear and regret, it breaks Sabo’s heart.

“Sabo… Do you hate me?”

He freezes, his heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears. The question is whispered into a pillow, muffled but not muted, and his brother’s voice is so broken and so small that it takes the revolutionary a long time to process the words.

_‘No, of course not Lu, I’m sorry, I’m the one to blame, I wasn’t there...'_

“I didn’t save him… Do you hate me?” Luffy sniffles in a voice that doesn’t belong to someone close to their twenties. No, this is the same seven year old boy that used to wake him up after a nightmare with a quivering lip and red rimmed eyes. This is the little brother of Ace and Sabo, not the notorious Straw Hat Luffy, and neither is Sabo the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army at that moment, but a big brother in all his heart and soul.

Why would Luffy ever think like that? He is the one that failed, that left his brothers on their own for all those years, who didn’t remember, who… Years of self-doubt and anger course through Sabo’s veins like poison, clouding his mind. He stifles a groan. Why would his _\- sweet, innocent, compassionate, undeserving of all this shit -_ little brother ever blame himself when he all but lost his life to save Ace?

When he was there and Sabo was… not.

“Sabo?”

His whispered name tears Sabo back into reality. There is no time for speculation, not when Luffy is still sobbing softly into the pillow he is clutching onto with a white-knuckled grip, hard enough to break the fabric. A stray feather lands on Sabo’s hand, and he stares at it for a split-second before his vocal chords remember how to transform his thoughts into actual, audible sounds.

“No, oh Luffy, why would you even think that, no, of course not…” he hurries to answer, and brown eyes swimming with tears meet his own, staring at him intently as if to make sure the words are true. It lasts for no more than two seconds, and then Sabo’s arms are occupied with shivering rubber limbs. He holds Luffy tight, so close that anyone but his elastic brother would have broken a bone or dozen, and Sabo doesn’t want to let go. Not ever.

“Are… you… sure?” Luffy mumbles through his tears. Sabo wipes them away with a gloved hand and smiles somberly. He nods, and the younger brother goes limp his arms, his entire form racked with relieved sobs.

“Of course I’m sure, idiot,” Sabo says fondly, and Luffy smiles at him, reassuring without a spoken word that he doesn’t blame Sabo either. Sabo can hear himself babbling, muttering close to incomprehensible words of reassurance and comfort to his only remaining brother. Tears burn in his eyes, and he lets them fall.

They stay like that for hours, until the Straw Hat’s resident swordsman comes searching for the Captain who has apparently missed dinner. And when even the prospect of meat doesn’t make Luffy break the borderline choke-hold Sabo has on him, the green haired man merely smiles and nods in understanding.

Luffy’s tears have long since dried, and so have Sabo’s. There's nothing left to say and they can hear their stomachs growling in unison, but they don’t want to let go. Not then, not ever.

“I miss him.”

“I miss him, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to the almighty Eiichiro Oda.
> 
> Unbetaed. Please leave a comment!


End file.
